NHRC & Sankala Foundation Launch Women Leadership Moonshot for India's Future

By: WE staff | Thursday, 8 May 2025

• Sankala Foundation, NHRC host National Conference on Women Leadership.
• Key policymakers, scientists, and entrepreneurs discuss women-driven development.
• Dr. Kiran Bedi proposes initiatives for rural women’s empowerment

The "Women Leadership Moonshot: “Shaping the Future” National Conference was held in New Delhi with the support of the Sankala Foundation, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and the Indian National Science Academy (INSA); major representatives of policy making, science, and entrepreneurship convened the conference to discuss the direction to empower women of the country. It was held in India Habitat Centre where its theme was centered on women as the protagonists of India’s growth.

Some of the prominent guest speakers included Dr. Kiran Bedi, former Lt. Governor of Puducherry Amitabh Kant, G20 Sherpa and OSD; Bharat Lal, CEO of NHRC; Dr. Vinod Paul, Member NITI Aayog; Cindy McCaffrey, UNICEF India Representative for India, underscored the need of social economic reforms to enable women realise ‘viksit bharat’.

The chief guest of the ceremony was Dr Kiran Bedi, IPTA who spoke on the topic of the day – Accountability in Governance through her keynote address. In order to strengthen the public’s confidence in the government institutions, she encouraged the senior officials to spend a considerable amount of time interacting with the field institutions. In addition to this, the proposal to provide thirty electric scooters to female sarpanches, with a view to enabling rural women to become more mobile, explains why Dr Bedi was an avid supporter of backing for rural women.

Apart from mobility, several recommendations were made by Dr. Bedi for reforms in the care policies to boost the care industry that is mostly being managed by women. Thus, she proposed the implementation of a Welfare and Training Programme for Women Employment in this sector as a way of empowering the women socially and economically.

It made it easy to find practical approaches to address the gaps provided a platform to advance the equality and call for more women leadership. The involvement of policymakers, scientists, and other business leaders was another giant leap towards the creation of an advanced India for women in the future.

In such dialogues and reformative actions, slowly but surely, India is inching towards a time where it is the woman who will drive the development of the nation.